Daily existence in today's world requires a heavy reliance on acquiring and applying new knowledge for private and professional success. However, there is a morass of information offered through online information portals available over the internet or within internal electronic networks. Those portals are deficient in meeting the needs of both knowledge builders and knowledge consumers because they do not provide effective means for knowledge preservation and community-based knowledge building. Deficiencies in the conventional information portals include but are not limited to:                Lack of credibility of information referral services—Proprietary logic for how information products are chosen is often based on paid advertising, rather than the credibility of the authors. This results in uncertainty for the knowledge consumer about the products returned. Take, for instance, online search engines like Google and Bing: They do not fully expose their decision process when selecting information to return to an information consumer's requested keyword query.        Inefficiencies when converting information artifacts into knowledge artifacts—often due to the central problem that no singular information artifact delivers a complete knowledge artifact. So a means by which one can quickly collect, classify and organize n-information artifacts and convert them into a singular knowledge artifact is not available.        Inefficiencies when sharing knowledge artifacts—“How-to” publications are longstanding methods for sharing one's knowledge artifacts in a single binding. However in today's world, knowledge must evolve quickly in response to the constant influx of new information. In the technology sector for instance, by the time a technology publication is printed, its contents will be largely obsolete. Even online books pass through a number gateways and gatekeepers that make no contribution to the actual knowledge embodied in the artifact. Having a method and machine for rapidly building a credible knowledge artifact and sharing it is sharply needed.        Inefficiencies when reorganizing knowledge artifacts for different purposes—This is a sub-problem of the artifact sharing problem. In order to rapidly build and share knowledge artifacts, it is vital to re-purpose existing artifacts effectively.        
Here are a few information portals or software product classes that contribute to the above deficiencies, often because they that have not recognized the problems that are solved by the invention:                Knowledge building software or Computer Supported Collaborative—example KnowledgeForum—All known examples of these technology products focus on non-guided and free-form repositories of informal notes contributed by individuals.        Online forums such as Yahoo and Google Groups—Portals have no guided system for contextually classifying information artifacts, which transforms them into knowledge artifacts.        Search engines that deliver lists of information artifacts, with little or no organization or prioritization based on credibility of the source. Even algorithms that return results based on popularity or number of “hits” only indicate the number of other knowledge consumers who were enticed, for a variety of reasons, to access that source. When a credible source is found, there is no way for the knowledge consumer to convert it into a knowledge artifact that would allow the consumer to readily rank, recall, and share credible knowledge and knowledge sources.        Wikipedia.com—a collection of free-form electronic information artifacts. Consumers of these information products have no means for converting information artifacts into knowledge artifacts        